Higher
by BlueNeutrino
Summary: The angels are falling. There's nothing Castiel can do to stop it, and it's too late to change his actions of the last few days. Now all he can do is watch as his brothers and sisters fall from the sky. Songfic style ficlet.


**A/N: Based loosely on "Higher High" by Epica and the words go very vaguely to that tune. I just wanted to try something in this style.  
**

_**Higher**_

It happened one evening in May, that the angels fell. Once they had been higher than stars, but still they fall first, cast out by Heaven to tumble through Earth's sky in a hail of fire.

Beneath the cascading lights a figure stands and watches the fall. It's human shaped, and now human in nature, wrapped up in guilt and despair and an old trenchcoat. Darkened eyes turn towards the blazing figures overhead. The sky blue of day gazes up into the deep blue of night, each misted by tears both for and from Heaven.

He remembers how it was to fly, and now never again.

_Time lingers on the echoes of being caught upon the air  
Feeds the flames of yesterday that burn more bright than I can bear_

This was never supposed to happen. He could barely begin to contemplate how his actions - all of them, over the years - had decimated Heaven so completely. Closing the gates was one thing, but he had been certain he'd see the Earth crumble into ruin before the Host of Heaven fell. Yet they had, and he'd been the first. The one to begin it all.

_There was a promise that I would live to watch the whole world fall down  
But the world laughs as it watches while I fall to the ground_

The lowest angels are close enough for him to see the shapes of their wings blazing; feathers alight in the atmosphere as they burn up from some supernatural friction-induced heat. There's a sharp pain that pricks at his own shoulderblades, a faint remnant of the agony he knows his brothers and sisters must be this moment experiencing, all because of him. He can hear their screams with deafening clarity even though they don't make a sound.

_The lead weight will drag me down in the oceans of blame  
Clips my wings and chains me to the guilt and the shame_

On his back there's a strange, unfamiliar absence of weight, yet he somehow feels heavier than he's ever been before. He can almost imagine the breeze rippling through the ashes of his wings, stirring them again to flex and beat, but it's not enough overcome the solid pull of gravity that holds him down, leaving him stranded and bound to the Earth. Dust in the sky can't carry him.

_Now I can barely reach the ceiling, let alone touch the sky  
My wings beat dust upon the air as I am left behind_

What good is he now? When an angel's wings burn up the angel is supposed to be dead and gone...free, in a way, from obedience or duty or existence. But still he's here, and he has no choice but to live, deal and eventually die as a human. Never before has he felt so powerless and weak, and this is what he's condemned his family to. The guilt is almost too much for him to take, piled up on top of what was already there.

_There's a darkened horizon I can't see beyond  
I can't run from the past or deny what I've done_

Now what was he to do? Go back to Dean? The man who yet again he hadn't listened to, but if he had, this never would have happened. He'd abandoned his friend and ignored Dean's prayers to take care of Sam so that he could pursue these reckless, futile trials. A traitorous angel he barely knew had been trusted over the friend who'd saved him countless times, and this is where it had brought him. There's a tightness in his throat from where his grace left him, or maybe from holding back tears, as he realises that Dean deserves better than him. A broken, fallen angel is no use to the Winchesters.

But he has no-one else to turn to, and they may be his only chance to put things right.

_I've hit this cold, hard rock bottom, yet somehow I'll climb  
The path lies above me and I will reach it in time_

The place he's standing in is daunting and unfamiliar, and he hates that he can't see it from above or fly away, but as the sky once again fades to hold no more than dim starlight he knows he has to find a way to leave. There must be somewhere he can go, or something he can do to stop Metatron and fix things, even though it's far too late to change what he's already done. Heaven's closed to him now, until the day he dies, but he thinks that maybe he doesn't need to fly to find his way home. He just hopes that it is still home by the time he reaches it.

_I'll find my way back to where the ashes can't lead me home  
Earthbound roads that I follow, I will walk them alone_

There's a cold emptiness in the sky now that the fire's burnt out. A millions angels like him now stand in pain gazing towards their distant lost home, and unlike him, they now have nowhere else to go. He fears that perhaps he might not be so unlike them after all. If Dean doesn't want him, he knows he deserves it. If his family don't forgive him, then he knows he deserves that too, but it's the only hope he has as he begins to walk across the hard ground that broke his fall. Where he's going, he isn't entirely sure, and how he'll get there even less, but at least he's going somewhere. Even if the road takes forever or he dies along the way, he knows that the sky is a place he'll never reach again.

_But smoke has stained all the memories that were touched by the fire  
And scorched earth and scorched skies cannot take me higher_


End file.
